Just a Girl, Standing in Front of a Boy

by Lucy-Anne Holmes

  Everyone is oo-ing and ah-ing after my speech.

  ‘Right drink up, and then we go and see the Arctic Monkeys!’ I command. Then Philippa and I scream. We love the Arctic Monkeys.

  ‘Oh, no, I’m too old,’ Mum protests.

  Debbie shakes her head admonishingly.

  ‘Mrs T, did you or did you not used to like the Stones.’

  ‘Still like the Stones, Philippa.’ Mum corrects her.

  ‘Well, the Arctic Monkeys are the Stones of our generation and you will love them.’

  ‘We saw the Stones at Reading.’ Debbie sighs. ‘With that chap. What was his name again?’

  ‘Lawrence,’ Mum says quietly.

  ‘Lawrence! That’s it, thank you. We danced to the Stones with Lawrence and he had you on his shoulders. Oh, he was a funny dancer, did a brilliant Mick Jagger impression. Marge!’ Debbie Diamond is serious suddenly, and wagging her finger at Marge. ‘That chap, the one whose mouth you had your tongue in, get his number, do it. Now! Go on, off you go, don’t lose him, don’t do a Pam and Lawrence on us. Now!’

  Marge does as she’s told and gets right up and pops into next door’s tent. She hauls her fella out, types his number into her phone and then drags him along with us as we all make our way to the main stage.

  I almost can’t remember the old Mum. The one who Dad would shhhhhh and shout at. Someone has swapped her for this laughing, dancing woman.

  ‘Philippa, can I use your camera?’

  Philippa smiles and nods and turns her back to me so that I can extract it from her rucksack. She points towards Marge, as I zip it back up.

  ‘I know! Unbelievable,’ I holler over the music. ‘You’d think they’d need to come up for air at some point.’

  Marge has been snogging the chap from the next tent whose name I’m still not sure of for the whole of the Arctic Monkeys’ back catalogue. We’re onto the encore songs now. That’s how long they’ve been at it. While they’ve been snogging, Mum and Debbie Diamond have been dancing, well, jiggling.

  Before the Arctic Monkeys came on stage Debbie Diamond took a sip from her hip flask.

  ‘Girls,’ she declared. ‘We won’t embarrass you. Of that I promise you.’

  ‘No, there’s nothing worse than an over-fifty making a fool of herself on the dance floor.’

  ‘Well, there is, Pam, it’s two over-fifties making fools of themselves.’

  ‘Oh, please!’ Philippa snorted.

  ‘If you want to dance, dance!’ I shouted, holding my arms wide and stomping along to the warm-up music, and because I’d had a lot of pear cider it struck me as a good metaphor for life.

  Anyway, after approximately half a song they adhered to my advice and have been engaged in some pretty awesome rock jiggling ever since. They stand with their feet rooted to the plastic-cup-littered ground, their arms out at forty-five-degree angles from their bodies, frantically nodding their smiling heads to the beat. It’s quite something to behold. They look as though they’re being driven down a bumpy street at great speed.

  I turn on Philippa’s camera and take a few shots of the band on the stage. Philippa starts pouting in the direction of the camera so I get a good one of her too. I catch a sneaky one of Marge and blokey and then turn to Mum and Debbie Diamond. Debbie sees the camera and immediately puts her arm around Mum’s shoulders. Mum opens her mouth and smiles. Her eyes are shining and her cheeks are rosy from fun and sun. She looks beautiful. Debbie accidentally jiggles onto Mum’s foot, Mum pretends dramatically that she’s in agony. The Arctic Monkeys launch into a Rolling Stones cover and they both leap into the air. I keep snapping away taking pictures of the two of them, my mum looks so full of joy and life, I don’t want to stop.

  Chapter 60

  ‘What are you having?’ Matt asks.

  It’s just a drink! I said yes to a drink, that’s all. It doesn’t really mean anything except that I felt bad that he was texting all the time. Although, I won’t have a drink drink, because I’m still hungover from Reading, even though I’ve been back three days. He looks tired. It quite suits Matt to look tired, somehow. There’s something a bit terrifyingly driven about him when he looks in the peak of health and fitness. Something indomitable. The vulnerability he has when he’s tired and a little low is endearing.

  We’re in a pub I’ve never been to before, the other side of Nunstone. A country pub, with real ale and pork scratchings on the table. I tried one. It nearly broke my jaw.

  ‘Oh, um, just a Coke.’

  He nods and heads to the bar, leaving me fiddling with a beer mat, hoping my jaw will recover.

  He comes back with a Coke and half a bitter and sits on a stool opposite me. It seems such a small seat for a big man.

  ‘Thanks,’ he says, ‘for meeting me.’

  ‘Thanks for the drink.’

  ‘Pleasure. How are you?’

  ‘Um, all right. How are you?’

  ‘All right.’ He nods and then sips his drink. ‘I miss you.’

  I nod. ‘Hmmm.’ I smile sadly.

  I don’t suppose these sorts of drinks are ever a laugh a minute.

  ‘So, are you and Al…?’

  ‘No.’ I shake my head.

  ‘Right.’

  He takes another sip. He should have got a pint really.

  ‘How’s work?’ I ask after an uncomfortable pause.

  ‘Busy, you know. Got the big yearly bash soon. You could still come with me…’ He tails off and looks out of the window. ‘How’s your work?’

  ‘I’m off work at the moment. There’s an enquiry into whether I accidentally killed an old lady.’

  He looks so shocked I laugh. But then I think of Doris and I stop.

  ‘Hopefully, it’ll all be OK.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I look at him. My Matt. Funny old handsome Matt, with his unbelievable drive and work ethic. His unshakeable notions of how things should be done and ordered. And I smile at him.

  ‘What?’ he asks.

  ‘Nothing.’

  I feel incredibly calm. Oddly so. Perhaps it’s the quiet old pub. Or perhaps it’s because the storm has passed. Perhaps it’s because although we’re totally different, I feel safe with Matt. Who knows? I’m sure Philippa would have a theory.

  ‘I’ll get to the point, Fan. I haven’t cancelled anything. Partly because I just couldn’t bring myself to. Partly because this all seemed so not you that I hoped, I hope’ – he looks straight at me with his tired eyes – ‘We might be able to salvage us.’

  I nod.

  OK, here goes.

  ‘The thing is.’ I stop and look down. ‘It wasn’t just Al. There was someone else too.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Fan, is there anyone you haven’t shagged!’

  I don’t know why I’m laughing.

  ‘I don’t think it’s very funny. Who was this one?’

  ‘The – oh, God, just someone I met.’

  ‘And is it serious with him?’

  ‘It isn’t anything any more.’

  He nods. He’s finished his drink already. He puts his glass down and shuts his eyes.

  ‘Oh, Fan,’ he says. ‘Why do I want you so much?’

  I shrug. ‘I really can’t imagine.’

  ‘I must be mad.’

  ‘Bonkers.’

  ‘Anyone else I should know about?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘You get me, Fan. No one’s ever really got me before. What did I do?’

  ‘Nothing, Matt. It so wasn’t you. It was all me. Well, maybe you booking the golf club when you knew I didn’t want you to.’

  ‘Fan, your idea was sweet and I thought about it, but who’d clear up? Who’d set up? It would take a week to sort it all out and then we’d start our married life having to take down a marquee and give people back their potato salad bowls. And I rather fancied being on a beach with a cocktail looking at my wife in her bikini.’

  I smile. He’s got a point.

  ‘So what do you reckon?’
>
  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Shall we have another go?’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Or do you think there’s still more for you to get out of your system?’

  ‘No.’ I laugh sadly.

  ‘Shall we just have a go? I don’t want to marry anyone else.’

  ‘But can you forgive me?’

  He looks at me and nods. ‘You hadn’t really slept with anyone before me, had you? I’m thinking it was a reaction to the proposal. Like you said, it was a shock, we hadn’t even lived together.’

  ‘Hmmm.’

  ‘But I think if we do this, you should move in with me. I don’t think I’m cool with you living with Al.’

  ‘What about my mum?’

  ‘She can stay with Al.’

  He reaches towards me and takes my hand. ‘I want to make you happy. Let me make you happy…’

  I look into his eyes and I think about the days I spent in bed after Joe King dumped me. I never want to feel like that again.

  I nod.

  Chapter 61

  ‘Look! Look, it’s in,’ Philippa says, thrusting a copy of the Tiddlesbury Times at me as soon as she’s opened the door. ‘It went in the paper today.’

  Is There An Angel In Our Midst?

  Television cameraman receives anonymous note offering him kind advice

  David Derman, 35, was recently down in the dumps, he had been working abroad and was finding it hard to readjust to life in England. One day he looked in his camera bag and found a small envelope with a note inside. The ‘angel’ wrote that he or she had been in the doldrums before, too, and offered a list of ten things to do that might cheer him up. The angel called the list the Smiling Manifesto.

  Dave says, ‘I’ve been following the advice and it’s got me smiling again. Now I’d like to discover who sent it as I want to thank them.’

  The Tiddlesbury Times is keen to uncover the angel in our midst, too, and would like to hear from you if you have received any notes from an anonymous well-wisher, or you think you may know who is writing them.

  ‘Who do you think it is?’ she asks with a wink when I hand it back to her.

  ‘No idea.’ I smile.

  ‘It’ll be interesting, won’t it, if people do come forward.’

  ‘I’m a bit worried we’ll hear more tales of our terrible matchmaking.’

  ‘Oh, bummer, yeah.’ She laughs. ‘So come up.’

  I follow Philippa up the stairs.

  ‘I have to tell you something,’ I say once we are in her room.

  ‘Why do I have a feeling it’s going to be one of the worst things you’ve ever told me?’ she says seriously, plonking herself on the bed and fixing her eyes upon me.

  ‘I’m going to marry Matt,’ I say.

  ‘Please don’t do it,’ she says, not missing a beat, as though she was expecting it.

  ‘I’m doing it.’

  ‘What does your mum say?’

  ‘I asked her to be happy for me. I don’t want to fall out with her and I don’t want to fall out with you. I was fine with Matt before all this Joe stuff. I just want to get back to that.’

  ‘But the Joe stuff, surely it’s made you realise that there is someone out there who’ll love you for you, who’ll make you feel alive and glow.’

  ‘Yes, and then he’ll crap on me from a great height.’

  ‘No, no. Please don’t.’

  ‘Philippa, I love you more than anyone in the world. But you need to realise that I know what’s best for me. You don’t. You do about a lot of things. But not this.’

  ‘Oh, Fan. What can I say to you?’

  ‘Nothing. You don’t understand.’

  ‘Urrgghhh,’ she groans in frustration. ‘But, Fan! I do! I think I understand you better than anyone. I understand that for years and years you tried to make your horrible father love you, but it didn’t work, and then you fell for Steve Wilmot and he broke your heart, and you didn’t want to have your heart broken again. And then you met Matt, and something about him bossing you around feels familiar and safe for you. But it only feels safe because that’s what your dad did to you. And you’ll end up like your mum and we won’t be friends for twenty-seven years and you’ll find out that Matt has another girlfriend and somewhere along the line you’ll lose you. And I don’t want you to lose you, Fan, you’re awesome! I give you a list of ten things and you do them for six years! Six years of meeting mavericks and helping kids with their homework and giving people flowers that you barely know. And the Tidds Tour – how you came up with that, I’ll never know, but I bloody love it. And the dress code, I say something for a laugh and you run with it till it’s a bloody adventure, and the musketeers, man, the Musketeer Missions, they’re mental, but they’re one of the highlights of my life. No, you are, Fan, you’re the highlight of my life and I know how hard stuff is with your depression, Fan’ – oh, God, she’s trying not to cry – ‘I really do know, Fan, how hard it is. And when you came off the antidepressants, Fan, it was the proudest I’ve ever been of anyone. I wish I could give you confidence. All the confidence in the world. Because I know people meet you and you’ve got pink hair and you’re funny and they must think you’re the most sorted person on the planet. But I know that somewhere in you is this belief that you’re worthless. And you’re not, Fan! But Matt, he doesn’t know any of this. And I don’t think you’ll survive with him. I think you’re very good for Matt, but he’s not very good for you.’

  ‘I’ve said I’ll marry him.’

  She kicks her bed frame. ‘Ouch, that really hurt.’

  ‘Please, just be happy for me.’

  ‘I can’t be happy for you. I can’t be there, Fan. Put yourself in my position!’

  ‘Please, Philippa. Please.’

  ‘Fan, no. I’m not coming to your wedding. What do you want me to do? Smile. Tell you the golf club is lovely?’

  ‘Yes.’ That’s exactly what I want her to do.

  ‘I can’t.’

  I wait for her to change her mind. But she doesn’t.

  ‘I’d best be off.’

  ‘Yep,’ she says, but she doesn’t look at me.

  Chapter 62

  Well, I’m back where I belong. I let my guard down. No, I let myself down, by getting close to Joe King. Still, it could have been worse and at least I’m here again with Matt. At least he was sensible enough to know I was behaving out of character, and he waited for me. And Philippa will come round. I have to believe that Philippa will come round.

  Being with Matt is already starting to feel familiar again. I hope I’ll stop comparing him with Joe King soon. I suppose it’s only natural that I should compare them. But I feel so guilty doing it. I feel so guilty all the time actually. Hopefully that will pass soon as well.

  Matt likes to put the telly on after sex and catch up on a bit of news or football. It’s good, it means I can zone out. I don’t think I can be perky at the moment. Post-coital Matt is not at all like Joe, Joe would ask me questions and questions about myself as we lay entwined in bed after sex. What was the first single you ever bought? If you won the lottery tomorrow, what would you do with the money? How did you get the scar on your chin? When we have our first child what shall we call the little fella? He’d really said that, when we have our first child… crazy. Or he’d play me a song on the stereo, and we’d lie there naked, our legs twisting around each other’s, our toes touching, listening to some beautiful folk song. Or he’d reach out of the bed and fetch his guitar, and then sit up in the bed and play me a song himself.

  Sex with Matt is different to sex with Joe King too. Well, of course it would be. With Matt it feels like something he has to do. Not a duty, as such, but a biological need that should be met. It’s not bad though. Not at all. But Joe King, well, Joe King was a sorcerer.

  You can’t fall in love at first sight. Well, maybe you can. But you shouldn’t.

  ‘Do you want me to buy you a new dress for my work do?’ Matt asks, during the adverts
.

  ‘Oh, no, I’m sure I’ve got something.’

  ‘Really? I don’t mind.’

  ‘No, I’ve got loads of dresses.’ I smile. ‘But thank you.’

  ‘Nothing too mad, Fanny,’ he says, and he must mean it because he turns his head from the telly towards me.

  ‘What are you trying to say?’ I joke.

  ‘You know, just that it’s my work do. I want us to make a good impression.’

  ‘Course,’ I mumble.

  ‘Maybe run a few suggestions by me in the next few days, so we’ve got time to go out and get something if we need to.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And maybe…’ he stops himself.

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  ‘Well, don’t hate me for this, Fan, but I was thinking about your hair.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘I was thinking it might be good if it could be a more natural colour. Don’t get me wrong, I like the pink, it’s kooky.’ He fingers a few strands idly, and smiles to himself. ‘I fell for you with crazy hair. But, you know, you’ve got to grow up sooner or later.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say.

  ‘If I’m going to be a partner, I don’t think we should entertain clients with you with pink hair. I don’t know what the Japanese would make of it. Or the Germans. They might think you’re on drugs.’ He laughs. ‘I think we should play it on the safe side.’

  ‘Hmm. What do you think? Blonde?’

  ‘I thought brown, Fanny. I think people would take you more seriously.’

  ‘Oh, oh, um, OK.’

  ‘And I was thinking about that too, your name’ – he props himself up further in bed. He’s on a roll now – ‘I think I should try to call you Jenny. Fanny is a bit too… a bit too… a bit too… something, well, you know what I mean.’

  ‘Hmmm. Anything else?’

  ‘No! Sorry. Does that all sound awful? It’s just when I’m a partner…’

  ‘Yeah, it’s fair enough,’ I say, turning away from him. I close my eyes. I want to go to sleep now.